Success through RepublishingWhat's old is new again, hmm? Who wouldn't like to see new versions of old titles back in print? I certainly wouldn't mind, and who knows...maybe I'd find a "new" author to whet my reading appetite (which is really huge, at the moment).
The WSJ's weekend advisor highlights Persephone Books and New York Review Books as "finding unlikely success in the overcrowded book industry by turning out reprints of decades-old titles."
They say Persephone will expand distribution next year beyond their own site and Amazon to include some bookstores. Plus: "Reprint publishers aren't under the same pressure to create instant hits as are publishers of new material, says NYRB publisher Rea Hederman. His books often take a year to gather momentum compared with the month or two that bookstores give a new title before they pull it from shelves. When NYRB last October released "A Savage War of Peace," about France's occupation of Algeria, it didn't take off at first. But what some people see as parallels to Iraq in the 1977 book have since turned it into a hit with American armed services. The title has sold more than 20,000 copies."
~Nancy Beck
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